ROA’s Legislative Assistant Elizabeth Cochran attended and participated in working groups at the National Military Family Association’s (NMFA) summit “When Parents Deploy: Understanding the Experiences of Military Children and Spouses” held May 12. The summit was an initiative to develop a ‘blueprint for action’ that followed up on NMFA’s commissioned RAND Corporation study of the effects of deployment on children which was released late 2009.
Read the RAND study
The summit addressed stress associated with the military family lifestyle, better access to care and support services, and improving education and employment opportunities for military families. As the keynote speaker, First Lady Michelle Obama announced that the President directed the national security staff to lead a government-wide review to identify new priorities and partnerships to support military families, as well as the Military Family Life Project which was launched by the Department of Defense this month. Mrs. Obama also spoke about the great need to broaden the public’s support of families, problems that service members, veterans, and their families face, importance of partnerships, as well as pointing out how only one percent of the national population is doing 100 percent of the fighting.
Read the First Lady's speech
1 comment:
I am grateful and humbled by the First Ladies words here. I am pleased she has chosen focus on military families with deployed heads of household. More needs to be done, but it is encouraging that the First Lady is taking a leadership role in this efforet.
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